Mrs Casablancas
by BIFF1
Summary: Dick borrows a book from Mac for a class but written in the margins is something that throws him for a loop. Does she like him? More importantly does he like her... Rated for language.
1. Wrong Casablancas

**Mrs Casablancas**

* * *

Dick has never really been one to borrow things.

He bought things instead.

He hadn't really thought about it but it was probably because he was rich. Just imagining having to borrow stuff, old stuff that other people had had their gross hands all over just turned his stomach.

God he can't even imagine the horrible embarrassment of this thing he'd heard of...hand-me-downs.

He physically shook a little bit.

"I'm going to need it back Dick." Mac tells him firmly pressing the book into his hands. He's a little surprised that Mac has any books at all since she's so electronical.

"Yeah yeah." He waves her off flipping through the book, the pages are worn like she's touched them a million times and something about that seems a lot less appalling then he's always thought. Maybe it's because it's Mac and not some stranger, she's always had clean hands.

"Don't get jam or beer or _spunk_ all over it." She tells him like that's all he is to her, a jammy fingered drunk that fucks a lot, although to be fair he takes a strange joy out of hearing her say spunk.

"I won't." He tells her firmly and she moves back from him a little and it's only then that he realises how close she was standing before, there's this odd loss to the space she used to occupy.

She goes to her door and opens it for him signalling that this particular interaction is over. He hates how it's always her that decides when there done now. He misses the days when it was him that left her, when he was in control of this friendship? Acquaintance? Whatever. But as he leaves she talks again and her voice is light and the look on her face is pleasant, "a week Dick that's it." She smiles at him and disappears back into her dorm and he knows that whatever they have happening is better now.

When he leaves her smiling instead of looking like he hit her.

* * *

"What the fuck is this!" He yells and Logan goes cross-eyed trying to push the book away from his face.

Dick is freaking the fuck out. His skin it too hot, his stomach is too tight, he is sure that his lungs aren't working properly.

"I can't see."

"What the fuck is this!" He shakes the book and let's Logan pry it out of his hand. He takes the opportunity to back away from Logan and start pacing the length of their living room.

Logan raises an eyebrow at him like he's had too many and trying to make out with the television, which in his defence only happened once and it was after they got back from TJ, everyone knows that doesn't count.

"You forgot how to spell Mr?" He offers and puts the book down on the couch beside him.

Dick swoops in and picks up the book again. His eyes glued to the slanted writing.

"It says: MRS Casablancas!" He taps on the writing and Logan leans back into the couch to get away from Dick's frantic hand and book combo.

"And..."

"Do you know whose book this is?!" He looks at Logan like he's in the slow class.

"Some girl in your poli sci?" Logan offers and then notes the width of Dick's eyes and the frantic breathing and adds, "a fat chick?" He pauses Dick is unnerved, like his world is coming apart. He hasn't seen this kind of emotion in years, "a POOR fat chick?"

Dick just looks at Logan like he's appalled that he thinks he's like that. He puts a hand to his chest even, he can feel it pounding erratically.

"Mac." He tells Logan managing to somehow sound both put upon and worried.

"Mac?" Logan leans forward on the couch and Dick seems to settle slightly now that he seems to have his friends attention, "Cindy?"

"Cindy?" Dick's eyes narrow, "no. Mac." He tells him again and just to make sure their on the same page adds, "Ghost World."

"Yeah Dick her name is Cindy."

"What? Then why do people call her Mac?"

"Do you even know her name Dick?"

Dick just kind of shrugs like it's never come up before and it hasn't. Why would he ever need to know Ghost Worlds full name?"

Logan runs a hand through his hair and stands from the couch. He smiles at him kinda lopsided and sad and puts a hand on his shoulder, "I'm pretty sure your not the Casablancas in mind here dude." And then he just walks away. Closes his bedroom door in that way that tells him very firmly that Logan Echolls is done with you.

Dick looks down at the slanted writing, in the plain blue pen and see's how curly she's made the c's and s's, how there's an absent-minded calm to it and wonders if she was talking to him on the phone when she wrote it.

He sinks to the couch and let's it just suck him all the way in, let's the over stuffed cushions pull his torso down and he just stays there flopped over looking at **MRS CASABLANCAS** and tries to focus on breathing, and pumping blood through his veins.

Beaver, she wanted to marry Beaver.

She wanted to be _Cindy Casablancas_...and fuck that actually sounds good and everything.

It's been so long that he's actually pulled Beaver and Mac apart in his mind because now she wasn't Beaver's little girlfriend or Beaver's beard or the person who...no he wasn't going to go there again(She wasn't the only one to blame. In fact she probably wasn't to blame at all). Now she was just Mac. Ghost World...Mac the vegetable lover who was good at computer stuff, had a good sense of humour and wasn't awful to look at.

Mrs. Cindy Casablancas had never meant marrying him and somehow it made him feel worse rather than better.

* * *

He knocks on the door and its probably too sharp and hard but he doesn't want to keep this book, not with her love for his dead brother scribbled all over it. He can't stop looking at _Mrs. Casablancas_ and thinking it'd be a pretty great deal. He'd never have to worry or do anything computer related again and the sex they could have...oh god, it was always the quiet ones.

He has the book opened up to the page and facing the door when she opens it.

"Dick what are you..." She trails off seeing the offending, thought provoking name. Her skin colors, a blush of heat crossing across her face and wrapping down her neck, "It's not what you-"

He doesn't let her finish, he drops the book and slams his mouth against hers.

He knows it doesn't mean him but he really doesn't want to hear her say it and the only way he's ever successfully shut up any girl is with his mouth.

She tastes like toothpaste and cornflakes and her mouth is hot and he feels out the curves of her body with his hands.

She has a frustrating layer of cotton keeping his hands from her skin, the last bastion of her modesty. (See he can be smart sometimes). He has a hand at her hip thumb rubbing against the bone, long strokes that make her push into his hand letting him know that even if her mouth is firmly shut, an angry little line, she's not completely against this.

She runs a hand across his chest, her hand slipping passed his collar and the feel of her skin on his is like burning silk until her nails bite into his skin.

He pulls away and her hand slides easily back out of his shirt.

"What the fu-"

"What the FUCK!" Mac yells and he sees the reason why he couldn't get under her clothes, she's wearing a dress, his hand hadn't been low enough.

"Should I leave?" Another voice comes from the side, Veronica is sitting on the bed with a book on her lap looking confused and slightly scandalised.

"Oh hey Ronnie." Dick smiles and stands up straight, his shoulder burns from where Mac dug into him and his heart beat feels wrong and his breathing is all uneven.

"Dick what the hell!" Mac is running her arm across her mouth like she's trying to remove all traces of him, "It's not y-"

"Don't." He tells her violently, surging towards her again, stopping the words with his mouth. He doesn't want to hear it, doesn't think he can stand to hear it. To have all possibility that she might maybe like him completely dashed.

She stamps on his foot and he pulls back again.

"Stop that!"

"It's not-"

"I know!" He yells over her and when her mouth closes she looking at him confused and he continues softly, "I know it's not me, just, just don't say it."

"why?"

"You can't really be that clueless Ghostworld." He turns to Veronica whose still on the bed, book in her lap with that know all look on her face, "Fill her in Nancy Drew." He tells her and leaves the room, closing the door probably too hard.

This is why he just buys things.

* * *

**A/N:**Just a little somethin I found in my old phone when i was pulling things onto my new one. Thought you might like a look.


	2. Right Casablancas

She didn't need _Nancy Drew_ to spell it out for her, although Veronica had done so anyway.

_Dick likes you_

Since fucking when?

Probably right around the same time they had started being sort of maybe friends. Surely that was all that was, just Dick being confused because he didn't do girl friends who weren't _girlfriends_.

She picks her book up off the floor and sits down heavily on her bed.

She'd chalk it up to being drunk but he hadn't tasted of anything that would lend that theory credit.

This isn't an issue.

In fact its a non issue.

Who cares if Dick likes her, she doesn't like Dick. She barely likes him enough to stay in the same room as him, she certainly doesn't like him enough to let him put his tongue in her mouth...or any other place for that matter.

Although she figures he must be good at it. Why else would girls still be with Dick even if only for short periods of time. He had a reputation for being an absolute asshole. A rich entitled frat boy who knew his was around certain parts of anatomy.

He's probably good at all sorts of stuff like that.

_Why are you even thinking about that Cindy Mackenzie._

_You do not want to have a relationship with Dick Casablancas._

No, but she's not really thinking about a relationship.

Ugh stop.

The look on his face and the desperation in not wanting to hear her deny it clearly said that maybe he had been. So no hot no strings sex for you Miss Mackenzie.

Dealing with Casablancas' was dangerous anyway.

Like one Casablancas stain on her soul wasn't bad enough he wanted his chance to rip her apart too? What was with that family? Was it something in her blood that made them want to completely wreck her? A pheromone maybe?

Flopping back on her bed she holds the book up, arms out straight looking at the book that she'd completely forgotten that she'd declared her love of Cassidy all over. Scribbling in the margins like a blushing school girl.

God she'd been such a confusing mess for him...wait.

She hadn't been reading this while she was with Cassidy.

She'd read_ The Prince_ in tenth grade.

When she'd been reading it in spanish class instead of listening to Senorita McMumbles-a-lot.

She sat up quickly.

The blood rushing around her body too fast, her heart thumping wildly, her eyes wide.

"Oh god."

The spanish class she'd had with _Dick._

When she'd sat behind him and thanked god for the fact that he'd grown tall and wide shouldered over the summer and was able to hide her activities.

That whole semester he hadn't been with Madison.

When he smelt of the ocean and boy stuff and great.

And she'd wanted to touch his terribly good looking hair.

And he'd invited her to that party.

_God her first 09er party._

Her_ only_ 09er party until being invited by the younger Casablancas.

The party he'd gotten back together with Madison at and she'd sat in the backyard not drinking her beer and wondering when she could leave.

_"Oh my god."_

The Casablancas in question when she'd absently doodled in the margins hadn't been Cassidy at all.

God she thought she was going to be sick.

How had she completely forgotten all about that? Blocked it out she guesses, it lives in that corner of her mind where she puts all the things that don't seem to matter any more, like old test scores and summer camps, piano lessons, and old crushes that she'd moved passed.

Maybe she owed him an apology...and he did need this book for his class. Maybe he'd be able to look past her grade ten pathetic doodling and just focus on the Machiavellian words.

* * *

He's going to think she wants to be with him.

She should have just written a note or something.

God why is she here

She turns to leave when the door opens.

"Mac?" she turns around slowly to see Dick standing in the doorway.

"Uh hey..." she feels super awkward. Which is just ridiculous because she doesn't like him and it'll totally be fine.

_Totally be fine? Bullshit. it's going to be awful._

"What are you doing here?" He asks and she's grateful that he sounds awkward too. Obviously he expected her to lay low for a while, to totally drop of his radar until this whole little thing between them was over.

Something she was thinking was probably a very good idea.

"I came to give you this back." she holds out the book, arms fully extended to keep as much distance between them as possible. Not that he hadn't been able to easily overcome any space earlier, "You need it for your assignment right?"

His eyes drop to the book in her hands, he pushes her hands away softly and his skin is too hot against hers.

"I don't want to look at it Mac. I'll just buy a copy."

"That's stupid just take it."

He looks up at her quickly, "What so I can look at how much you loved my brother? I think I'll pass."

"It's not you're brother." she tells him quietly.

It's not a big deal that was years ago, it didn't mean anything any more.

But if it doesn't mean anything any more why is her heart pounding.

He takes the book from her hands, "It's me?" he looks up at her and his smile is just painfully bright. He moves in and she steps back quickly her back slamming into the wall.

"I haven't touched that book since the tenth grade Dick." she tells him what she hopes is firmly.

"The tenth grade..." he looks confused and she can't blame him, not really. Not when she's giving him hope and then pulling the rug out from under him.

"Tenth grade spanish? I sat behind you." she huffs because he doesn't even seem to know what she's talking about at all. Like she hadn't existed to him until she'd shown up at the carnival hand in hand with his brother.

The very idea burns.

"Yeah I know you sat behind me..." he's looking at a page further back.

Narrowing her eyes she can see it's his name and hers paired.

"But you didn't like me." he looks up at her.

"I did."

"No you didn't." he holds the door open and steps aside to let her in and she accepts his offer it feels stupid to argue about this in the hallway.

"_Yes_ I did." she tells him firmly, turning to see that he's standing really close, she looks up at him, up into wide blue eyes and blonde hair.

"Then why didn't you come to the party?"

He remembered the party?

He remembered inviting her to the party?

"I did go..." she tells him and her voice is this soft thing she doesn't recognise.

Calm down girl, you don't like him. You haven't liked him in years...

"I didn't see you."

She steps away from him and feels cold for it, turning away from him, "Yeah well you were a little busy with your tongue down Madison's throat." the words come out with a hiss of jealousy and she's surprised at herself.

It was years ago.

What did it matter any more.

"I thought you blew me off. Madison said you'd..._god I'm an idiot_."

It was a long time ago, what did it matter now. So what if she had liked him and he had liked her. What did it matter now after everything, after his brother, after she'd been ripped apart and sewn back together crooked. She'd never be the same again, she would never be that bold, smart ass fifteen year old girl with kool-aid dyed hair again.

He didn't really want_ her._ No he'd just been reminded of what she had been once, that was the person he wanted. A memory. A ghost.

That was the _Mrs. Casablancas_ he had pictured in his mind.

"I'm going to go..." she tells him softly trying to step around him, but he isn't making it easy for her.

"Don't go." he sounds broken and maybe he isn't the same either. She knows he isn't. can tell in the way his eyes don't sparkle, in the way he talks, in the fucking structure of his sentences that he's broken too.

"I'm not that girl Dick, it's not tenth grade any more and you're easy charm and perfect hair just isn't enough." She pushes past him and makes it a couple of feet before she's stopped by his arms around her middle.

Holding tight and fast, his face pressed against her shoulder, his hair on her skin.

"Don't go." he whispers into her skin and she finds that even if she could move from his too tight grip she doesn't actually want to.

"why?"

he pressed his mouth against her skin in response, sending a rush of feeling through her body, heart thumping, lungs bursting, it wasn't fair.

She didn't like him any more.

He shouldn't have this effect on her.

She doesn't like him.

She doesn't.

He's holding her so solidly, and she hasn't felt that safe in a long time, she doesn't want to like him.

But maybe that's the thing. It isn't that she doesn't like him it's that she doesn't want to, which is so incredibly painfully different.

"I'm not the same girl that wrote those things Dick." she tells him but his hands hold fast and his mouth moves closer to her neck.

"I'm not the same either Mac."

One of his hands moves from her waist to brush her hair back away from her neck. She tilts her head granting him access and she can feel him smile against his skin.

He loosens his grip on her allowing her to turn to look at him.

She opens her mouth but his presses into hers before she can get any words out.

She responds this time and the second she does it changes, slow and soft and powerful.

He picks her up.

Like a princess and his smile brightens at her squeak of surprise.

"This doesn't mean I like you or anything. Or that we're dating. I am not you're girlfriend Dick." she tells him poking him in the chest as he takes her into his bedroom and slams the door closed behind him.

"Sure it doesn't." he smiles at her dropping her onto the bed delighting in the burst of laughter that fly's out of her before she can stop it.

He doesn't believe her.

Which is fine because she doesn't believe her either.


	3. Mrs Cindy Casablancas

**Mrs. Cindy Casablancas**

* * *

_Mrs. Cindy Casablancas_

She looks at the paper and ink and she feels so strange about it. It doesn't seem like it should be allowed, it looks too pretty to be anyone's actual signature.

She scribbles it out violently and it pulls Dick's attention yo her.

"What on earth are you doing?" he snatches the piece of paper she's been brutalising all trip. He's face darkens before he looks at her, "Is there something you need to tell me Mrs. Casablancas?" he asks and she's rarely heard less humour in his voice before.

She sighs and puts her head in her hands, the sun coming through the small airplane window sends miniature rainbows across the cabin, she twists the diamond engagement ring so that it's hidden in her hand taking all the whimsy out of the cabin.

She rakes her hands through her hair only to yelp in pain when the diamond gets caught in her hair.

With a sigh Dick's hands are in her hair, slowly and carefully pulling the strands from the ring.

"You have to stop twisting it under Mac." he tells her softly.

"It's just so big." is her response, the same thing she's said every other time she'd gotten it caught in her hair.

"That's what she said." he mutters and it brings a soft laugh out of her, "All right you," he sets the paper back down on the tray in front of her, "What's going on here? Do you not want to be Mrs. Casablancas?" he asks and his voice is oddly fluttery like he can barely push the words out of his mouth.

She puts a hand to his face, her thumb rubbing into his skin.

Of course she wants to be Mrs. Casablancas.

He's been calling her that in private since they'd started dating what felt like a million years ago and she honestly wouldn't want to be called anything else.

She'd almost think he'd been conditioning her, except that this is Dick that they're talking about. He's not stupid but he's not really a long-term plan kinda guy. He wasn't playing a long con with her that was for sure.

"Of course I want to be Mrs. Casablancas. I'm glad we got married" she tells him softly and it's like a weight is lifted off him, he seems lighter and brighter than before.

He leans into her seat and kisses her soundly and when he pulls away from her he's smiling, "So what's with all the angry scribbles?" he taps the blacked out words on the airplane stationary.

"I can't figure out my new signature." she tells him, looking away because it's such a silly thing to be flipping out over. She twists her rings around nervously, careful to make sure that at least her engagement ring ends up with the diamond on the correct side.

Dick starts laughing.

"Richard this is serious." she tells him sternly.

"No Cindy it isn't."

"If you're just going to patronize me I am not joining the mile high club with you." she tells him, voice and face dead serious.

Dick chokes a little before he pulls his laughter back in.

"I mean, of course it's important." he nods sagely and she just rolls her eyes. He grabs the paper and hands her the pen.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm fixing it." he clears his throat, "Mrs. Casablancas a package for you." he doesn't even snicker and she's pretty impressed. He puts the paper on her tray, "If you could sign here please. quick I have like eighteen other deliveries still and my girlfriend just got out of the hospital and if I don't get there in time to pick her up she's never going to forgive me. I mean how was I supposed to know that, that turkey was going to explode." he's rolling his free hand to hurry her up and she signs quickly just to shut him up.

He takes a look at the signature.

"I like it." he tells her and sets the paper down in front of her.

She actually likes it too.

It looks kind of like the ridiculously quick lines of his signature and she's pretty sure she could get used to see in it on things.

Dick puts her tray into an upright position.

"What are you doing?" she asks and he leans in close.

"I thought you might want to deal with that package." he smirks at her and then leaves for the bathroom.

She waits just long enough to make him think she's not going to join him before she gets up. She's not all that surprised that one of the first things she's doing as Mrs. Casablancas is joining the mile high club.

Must be the name.

* * *

**A/N: ** a little epilogue present for everyone being so great. thank you so much for all of your reviews they really do keep me going. I must read them all a gazillion times. thank you.


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